Borg Dawn
by InterestinglySherlock
Summary: What if the Borg attacked the Alpha Quadrant during Kirk's time, and won? Lt. Marlena Moreau (as seen in Mirror, Mirror) gets assimilated during the first battle, but is rescued 10 years later and awakens back to humanity in a galaxy where the Borg have won, and all Kirk has left is revenge.
1. We Are The Borg

I'm sure this idea has been sparked before, but this is my take on the concept. :D Please let me know if it's too similar to any previous works, I'm a newbie to the Star Trek fic fandom (though not to Trek) and I'm not well-versed in its fic lore.

What if the Borg invaded the Alpha Quadrant during Kirk's time...and won?

I chose Lt. Marlena Moreau from Mirror, Mirror, instead of making an OC since I think she would be an interesting character to flesh out. She would be the opposite of her Mirror universe counterpart, probably being shy and a bit of a wallflower in the normal 'verse. The story is actually Kirk's, but seen through her eyes.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount, and I hold no claim over them, and consider this story exercise fair use under commentary and education-please let me know how my writing is and critique as you'd like.

Thanks for letting me play in your sandbox!

* * *

Lt. Marlena Moreau was scared to death. It was going to be one of _those _days.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant?"

"Yes?" She balked and took a step back as an Ensign almost ran into her.

"You're ready for the review."

Well, here goes nothing. She knew she ought to be confident, she was a science officer and loved her field of exoplanetary geology. But every time she was called to speak in front of others, even if it was just one person, she completely lost her cool.

"Now?"

"Yes, now," the Ensign rolled his eyes. He'd been going back and forth all day fetching people, and probably was quite annoyed at the moment.

She adjusted her uniform, rubbed her sweaty palms on her skirt and slowly walked towards the conference room. It was now or never. Thoughts of getting kicked out of Starfleet flashed in her head, even though this meeting had nothing to do with that. Officers weren't supposed to be nervous. They were supposed to be eloquent speakers, elegant statesmen and women. She tucked a stray tendril of dark hair behind her ear as she passed through the door, hoping she had sufficiently cleared all traces of breakfast from her teeth.

"Lieutenant Moreau?" the Captain was sitting in the far chair, flanked to the left by the chief engineer and to the right by the Vulcan second-in-command. The Captain had a tablet in his hands, flicking the files off with the swipe of his hand. At least he didn't seem _too _bored, she thought with a wry twist of her mouth.

"Yes, sir. It's a…I mean, good afternoon—morning! I meant morning, good morning."

The chief engineer chuckled politely, and the Vulcan showed no response, as was expected. The Captain offered a tired glance up from his notes. "Your proposal for the voyage to and subsequent research station set-up for Planet X-816 is…interesting, to say the least. If we had the time I'd say go for it, but unfortunately Starfleet has just given us—"

The Vulcan coughed politely. "Captain, are you sure that—"

"They're going to find out about it anyway," he said in a low voice. "There's been an…incident near the vicinity of Neptune, and we're the closest ship."

"Surely we can go later, then," she said, the traces of speaking anxiety leaving her as a new fear came into play. "It's not like the research must be done right away."

"Certainly, but I knew that you wanted to go right away," he gave a lopsided smile. He seemed a little too easy-going, for a Captain, but then she had to remember how young he was, just as young or even younger than she. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. We'll get your project underway. It's just a detour."

"Famous last words," the Chief engineer muttered. The Vulcan simply raised an eyebrow, but she knew that he did not take kindly to the speculation.

"Thank you, Captain," she said, trying to keep her excitement hidden. She'd been working on the proposal for a good three months. A lot of sleepless nights. "Really, thank you—you have no idea—"

"I'm sure I do," the Captain got up, and placed the tablet on the table. "Thank you, Lieutenant, you're dismissed."

Just as she scurried out of the room, she could have sworn she heard the Captain say…

"We're going to Red Alert in ten minutes."

Red Alert. The sound made her heart catch in her chest, though admittedly there was a thrill of excitement as well. She didn't get to see much from her station belowdecks, buried between the water storage tanks and a stone's throw from medical, meaning she had a lot of noise and traffic with no idea what was going on. She sat in her swivel-chair, watching the screen on her computer reference and cross-reference soil samples from Draxia-2, but also keeping an eye on the intercom screens above the desks, waiting for a message from the Bridge. She and the twelve science-officers of the division had little to do during a Red Alert, except their normal duties, unless something extraordinary concerned their attention. So all they did was bite their nails and wait.

"Hey, Marlena," her friend Rina Thomas, a biologist she went to Academy with, leaned over on her chair. "Think the Captain's going to keep his word?"

"Huh?" She tore her attention away from the unchanging intercom screen. "What?"

Her friend rolled her eyes. "Really, it's nothing to worry about. It's probably just another dumb Ferengi ship getting lost in the system again. I was just saying, do you think the Captain's going to honor the proposal?"

"Why wouldn't he?"

"He doesn't seem to care much about our research, after all he cut our last trip short by half a day. Half a day of research wasted because he _forgot _he had to escort the dignitary colalition and was late—"

"He's trying, Rina," she said, a little snappier than she meant to. "He's new at the job. Don't you remember when you were new?"

"Yeah, and I didn't make stupid mistakes like that."

"Well, I did. I can relate," she said quietly. "And anyway, we—"

The ship suddenly rocked as if it hit something. There was a yell and people grabbed their stations to avoid skidding across the floor.

"Ferengi?"

"I really don't think so," Rina muttered, as the ship lurched again.

They looked at each other. They'd never experienced it before, but the ship actually _lurching _could only mean one thing.

Tractor beam.

The intercom suddenly winked on and a harried Ensign Chekov came on screen, his accent harder to understand as he spoke fast and tense. "Battlestations, all decks—battlestations. Prepare to be boarded—all personnel report to weapons lockers. Repeat, all personnel—"

Suddenly the lights winked on and off and a horrible, grating voice overrode the controls.

"WE ARE THE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

Everyone just _stopped _and looked at each other.

"What is a Borg?" Rina looked around, as if anyone else would know. The name was unknown.

The intercom winked on again, and flashed orange around the corners, signaling it was a message for their department personally. Chekov came on screen.

"Any available science officers, report to each deck. Do not engage enemy when presented—take sensor readings with your tricorder and report back to the bridge with as much information as possible. Repeat—you are to record and report _only_."

Rina and Marlena looked at each other, the color draining out of their faces.

"Guess we're gonna see what a Borg is," Marlena said slowly.

A few minutes after a quick safety lecture by a ticked-off Lieutenant Commander, a tricorder was pressed in her hands and she found herself in some deserted hallway with five security officers armed to the teeth with phasers and phaser rifles. She felt quite out of place, even though she had a gun strapped to her hip. That and she was absolutely horrified out of her mind, though morbid and scientific curiosity was surprisingly satisfied. At least she'd get to know what was going on.

"They're breaking through the bulkhead," the lead security officer said, and made a hand motion to walk forward. The lights blinked on and off again, and a wash of hot, sticky, humid air filled the hallway.

"Wait—wait for me!" came a voice, and the Captain and Dr. McCoy came running around the corner, holding phasers each. Marlena was aghast.

What was the _Captain _doing in the most dangerous part of the ship?

"If you don't mind my saying so, sir, this isn't exactly the best place for you," the lead said, dripping sarcasm.

"Concern noted," the Captain gave him a dirty look.

It was something that Marlena had noticed, from the time she came to the ship—his age and his inexperience resulted in a lot of disrespect, especially from the older officers. Something that she could related to, she supposed.

The bulkhead creaked, and the sound of something heavy hitting it echoed through the metal walls.

"Why's it smell so bad?" the Captain wrinkled his nose. "And it's hot."

"Atmosphere from the other ship," she was finally happy to be of some use. "It has very high humidity and their internal temperature's past 100 or so degrees."

"Anything nasty or unbreathable coming in?" McCoy asked, the tenseness in his voice bringing out his southern accent more.

"Nothing our scrubbers can't handle," she looked down at her tricorder. "But I don't think—"

BLAAAT—BLAAAT! A firefight suddenly erupted—men were yelling, people were flying everywhere, phasers set to kill—and large shapes were entering the hallway. Large shapes wrapped in a green mist—they went down with a couple of shots—then just as suddenly, they didn't. Marlena stared as one came bearing down on her—a monster. Pale, slimy gray skin, a mishmash of metal parts, it was like a cybernetic Frankenstein from a crazy persons' nightmare. Her gun! Didn't she have a phaser? Her mind was like mush—she was going to be killed and she was here, frozen like an idiot!

And then it left.

It simply ignored her, then went after another crewmember who was firing wildly against it. Two metal tubes shot out of its arm and into the person's neck. The crewman collapsed. And then the metal monster went on its way.

Remembering how to breathe, Marlena ran to the person who had fallen. He was staring up, lifeless—and yet not lifeless. He was breathing—though he looked like he was screaming, with no sound coming out. Near where his skin was pierced, gray tendrils, like veins, ribboned out at an alarming speed.

What _was _this?

She looked around—the hallway was surprisingly empty—the firefight had continued on without her, and she'd miraculously escaped. Or was ignored.

"Arrgh!" someone yelled from a corridor down.

She felt bad about leaving the strangely frozen crewman behind, but she could do no more help here.

BLAAT—BLAAAT!

She reached down to draw her gun, then remembered how she was ignored and the firing man wasn't.

Maybe that was the key here.

She ran down the corridor and hung a left, where she almost ran right into the Frankenstein again. Except this time he was locked in battle with the Captain!

Without thinking, she drew her weapon and fired.

The monster turned around, seemingly unaffected. Though she realized its movements were sort of clumsy—an advantage here. With a yell, she dove for its feet and the Captain jumped and kicked at just the right time, sending it crashing to the ground. The Captain slammed the butt of his gun repeatedly into the monster's face, though it didn't seem to do much other than make it twitch.

"Come on, before it figures out how to use its knees!" the Captain reached for her hand, and they ran down the hallway.

A few corridors down, he stopped running and ushered her into an alcove. "We'll wait here a second and see if we can contact someone," he pointed to the intercom, which was glowing an unearthly green. "They obviously hacked our systems already—it's getting hotter in here."

She hadn't noticed after all the running. Right now she was concentrating on how to breathe properly.

"They—they—they're—"

"They're _not_ taking this ship," the Captain grunted as he ripped the top of the intercom open and dug at the circuits inside. "I don't care if I have to go through every deck myself and sweep them out."

Marlena sunk to her feet, all the strength had drained from her legs. "Starfleet surely will have heard our distress call by now."

"Starfleet's a little busy," the Captain muttered as he bit one of the plastic casings off of the wires. "There's more than one of those…ships out there. We're not the only ones in this mess right now."

"What do they want?"

"I don't know…" he tied one of the wires together and the intercom glowed orange. "There we go, baby. I knew you were still in there." He tapped the screen and typed something in. The map of the Enterprise showed—more than half of it was in red.

Taken by the Borg.

There was a thud nearby.

"Do you hear that?" Marlena jumped. The Captain nodded, grabbed his gun. She held his hand back. "Wait—I think they only react when you attack them. They might ignore us if we don't move."

"Unfortunately, attacking is exactly what I would like to do," Kirk shoved his way forward. "Get your gun and follow me—we gotta get back up to the bridge."

Reluctantly, Marlena unholstered her gun, and followed him.

BLAAT! Out of nowhere, five Borg were there. The phaser fire did nothing.

"I don't understand," he said, his eyes wide, probably more with anger than fear. "They're shielded somehow?"

Suddenly three more Borg were behind them, and one grabbed the Captain by the throat. Marlena saw the two tubes shooting out of its wrist—they were going to kill him, or worse! Without thinking, she shot the only place she knew would be effective—the liquid oxygen lines that were always located on the left bottom panel of the corridor—normally it would take more than a few phaser bolts to blow it up but she hit it with full power—and BOOM! The Captain and she both went flying.

Success!

She was elated—until she realized that there were two tubes sticking out of her neck, from the cold metal hand on her shoulder.

Oh no.

The tubes disappeared back into the hand. Everything started spinning.

She tried fighting it, she really did.

But the last thing she remembered was the voices—the millions upon millions of voices. Welcoming her home.

"WE ARE THE BORG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

Dirty lights swung overhead.

"I think she's coming 'round."

"Vital signs stable. Or at least, normal. How's the red line?"

"Holding steady. She should be waking up any moment now."

Dirty lights. A blurred face.

A human face.

With panic, she shot up, realizing she was on a table somewhere, and being held back by strong hands—but not stronger than hers. She pushed forward, until a cold metal thing was pressed on her neck and she seemed to lose all control. She slumped back down on the table again.

A face peered over her.

A long-lost memory.

"Dr. McCoy?" she managed to form the words, her voice rusty from lack of use and whatever they injected into her system.

The face smiled. It was an older face than she remembered. More worn. His eyes…they were distant, not the bright blue they used to be.

"What…what happened?" she slurred.

"You, are one lucky little miss. Now that will wear off in just a second—try not to knock us out again, okay?"

She could move her arms and hands again. She raised one clumsily—and noticed the line of metal tubing that ran along the edge of her hand and radiated along the knuckles, to disappear again.

Borg technology.

Assimilation!

She almost screamed, but her body couldn't quite catch up to her mind. The horror and elation of individuality, the memory of being one with the collective and the shock that she suddenly wasn't, all seemed to explode in her mind at the same time. Instead she opened and closed her mouth a bit, a strange whine coming out instead. "I was…I was…"

"You were Second of Five," came a familiar voice.

The Captain.

Older. Streaks of gray on his temples, a horrible scar over his left eye, rendering it useless—a black eyepatch, worn and old, stretched across it.

"I don't understand…"

McCoy pressed a button somewhere and the table raised, so she could see them properly as she was in a seated position now. What she assumed was sick bay looked more like the sewage tank of a criminal transport ship. Dirt. Rust. Broken panels, missing lights.

"This is not a Starfleet ship," she said a-matter-of-factly.

"Starfleet," the Captain chuckled. "No, Miss Moreau, there is no Starfleet anymore. You're on _Pike's Revenge_. Welcome back to humanity."


	2. Resistance

It didn't seem right.

Marlena stared blankly at the rusty stain on the wall of her quarters—it was still bigger than a Borg alcove, but it was more like a closet. She sat stiffly at the edge of her cot, her muscles and mind having a hard time with the concept of 'lying down'. The Doctor had explained to her that he was able to remove enough implants so that she would not need the assistance of Borg regeneration, but still—sleep seemed to elude her. She wanted desperately to return to regeneration—and yet desperately wanted nothing to do with it.

But if she slept, wouldn't the nightmares come?

A knock on the door.

"Come in," Marlena said eagerly. She felt anxious being alone—a byproduct of being attached to the collective for so many years. She accidentally touched one of the thin implants still embedded on her face—and shuddered. A big one that traveled the length of the left side of her jawline, and a small triangular on her forehead, that she tried to keep hidden under her dark hair.

"The Captain would like to talk to you, he's on the bridge." It was Dr. McCoy. "You feeling all right?"

"Can't sleep."

"I can prescribe something—"

"It's fine, I need to do it on my own, anyway," she said, not wanting to go back to the alcove.

He gave a nod, with a sad smile. "You'll be fine, in time. A lot of the 'rescues', as we call them, will have a pretty bad time with insomnia, but your body will re-adjust to the human circadian cycle."

"Doctor," she bit her lip, almost afraid to ask. "How were you all able to survive?"

"We were too ornery to be caught," a real laugh. Then he frowned. "It was by the skin of our teeth we made it out of there alive. The Captain lost his eye…we were on the run…I offered to get him a surgical replacement but he said no. He wanted to remember what they did to us…to remember what he had to do next. But anyway. We better get on with it."

The ship was small—about a fourth of the size of the Enterprise. There were very few crewmembers, all wearing a mishmash of clothing. Comfortable clothing, like the simple brown pants and blue tunic she was wearing. The only thing that was similar was that they all had a patch sewn on their chest—the only insignia that they wore, from old Starfleet uniforms. It was comforting, in this strange new world, to see the familiar command, engineering, and scientific emblems.

They emerged on the bridge, and Marlena realized why she was getting an odd feeling about this ship—old Klingon symbols flashed on various screens, with English superimposed.

"This is a Bird-of-Prey," she blurted out.

"That's right," the Captain turned in his chair, to look at them. He gave a wan smile. "I'm in need of a science officer, Miss Moreau. Would you be up for the job?"

She nodded, and he jerked his head towards the empty seat on the side of the bridge. She sat down in the chair, and gazed at the strange controls—the computer was in English, but it looked jerry-rigged...in fact it looked like someone hastily welded a Starfleet computer screen there. Everything on this ship was a mish-mash, a patchwork quilt of technology. Just like the Borg.

Then she remembered what she wanted to say. Somehow her previous nervousness showed up out of nowhere. She was annoyed, the Borg had been in her head for years-couldn't they have squashed that stupid old fear?

"Captain, I…I just wanted to tell you...thank you. But I have to ask," she took a deep breath.

"Why? Why did you rescue me, out of everyone else?"

There were so little of them left. She took a glance around the bridge—Lt. Uhura was here, as was Sulu. Chekov was absent, as well as a number of the usual bridge crew. And what of Mr. Spock?

"We're not in the business of rescuing," he said simply, staring at the screen ahead. They were in warp; the stars were streaking by as slivers of white light. She tried not to stare at his eye patch and the horrible scar that streaked across the hidden eye, but she couldn't help it. Somehow, despite the years and the roughness, his face hadn't changed all too much.

Except his eyes—there was no mistaking the coldness, the pain, the emptiness that wasn't there before.

"We're in the business of killing the Borg. You are…well, you were a Second, therefore you had valuable information and codes. Most of the time we can't save the drones. We do what we can, because honestly there aren't very many of us left. You were lucky in that Dr. McCoy managed cut your connection off from the collective in time, and the Borg bits weren't in places that would kill you if we removed them."

"Lucky," she said dully. If she hadn't been in the right place at the right time, she'd still be a drone.

A living death.

"We do what we can," Dr. McCoy said emphatically, giving a glare to the Captain. "It's not enough."

"You're absolutely right, it's not enough," the Captain muttered. He seemed to drift off, lost in thought. Some memory had caught him and wasn't letting go.

"So…" Marlena continued. "How did we lose so badly?"

The Captain laughed, but it was bitter. "We got destroyed, is what happened. Nobody had any intel on the Borg. They came from everywhere and nowhere. We think they originally came from the Delta Quadrant, but during the attack on our system, there were simultaneous attacks on Vulcan, Romulus, the Klingon homeworld—everyone, everywhere. It was like they knew exactly how to get us—and that's easy to figure out, all they'd have to do was absorb a couple of high-ranking Starfleet officers and they'd have our codes and everything they need. And they did. They assimilated Earth in a matter of weeks—our fleet destroyed, the survivors mostly colonists offworld—the Borg, believe it or not, cared little for the small colonies, so that's where we went. We hopped from world to world on beat-up ships, surviving. That's all we did. Survive."

"And the Enterprise?"

For a split second, she could see the emotion register on the Captain…on James Kirk's face. A moment of unspeakable horror and loss—and just that, a moment, and it was gone.

"We lost her."

And that was that. Marlena decided not to press it. Perhaps she'd talked to McCoy, he seemed to be easier to converse with. Her screen blinked with some information about warp speed and the condition of the engine—from the looks of things it was just as shoddy as the rest of the ship—but she realized, as she reached up to touch the screen, her hands were shaking.

She clenched her fists.

"Why?" the word escaped her before she realized it.

Kirk and McCoy both looked at her.

"Why would they do this? What do they want?"

"You were part of the collective. You know exactly what they want," Kirk said simply. "They want everything."

A few hours and she'd become accustomed to the strange controls and readings, after some help from Uhura, who decided to take pity on her and sit next to her for the time being. Interestingly enough, she was still wearing a bright red dress with high black boots, not unlike her uniform. Marlena touched the rough synthetic blue shirt and missed her old uniform.

"There, you have it now," she smiled as Marlena finally stopped exiting the main menu every time she meant to select it.

"Thanks…" she glanced over to where Kirk and McCoy were talking in low voices. "Considering I haven't had the most thorough orientation, what exactly are we doing?"

"What we've been doing," Uhura said in that same, cold tone that Kirk had developed.

"Killing Borg?"

Uhura shrugged. "You have to understand. You might very well see someone you recognize. You have to think of them as the Borg, and not as who they were—because they're not those people anymore."

"Then what of me?" Marlena glared.

"You were lucky. That's it, plain and simple, as painful as that might seem right now," something in the other woman's face softened. "We can't…rescue everyone."

"Can't we try? I mean, certainly if you've rescued me, you've rescued other people—"

"We've rescued a total of seven," Kirk cut in, suddenly standing behind them. Marlena winced, she didn't mean to be so loud, but she was starting to get agitated. McCoy must have left.

"What?"

"Seven, if that's what you were wondering. Seven souls in ten years. You were the seventh, of course. Lucky number seven."

"Out of the approximately 23 billion sentient beings assimilated or killed within ten years," Uhura said with the slightest of sighs.

Marlena stared at the screen, not wanting to look either of them in the eye. Everything seemed so hopeless.

"Then what's the point? Why not just pack up the ship and travel as far as you can away?"

"Don't think we haven't thought about it," Kirk said. "Sounds nice, right? Safest option. Makes sense, logically. Heck, if we went at maximum warp and supplied ourselves right, we could make it to another galaxy. Leave this one to rot."

"But you're…not doing the logical thing, are you?"

That smile again. Bitter.

But still, there was an echo of the careless, handsome smirk she'd remembered.

"Nope."

A warning bell sounded, and Uhura quickly excused herself and went back to her seat, as well as Kirk.

"We're reaching our destination, Captain," Sulu said from the helm.

"Shields up, engines at full stop."

Not sure what they were going to see, Marlena held her breath unconsciously. The warp field winked out and real space appeared. What looked like a space station rotated in the distance, like a giant satellite array. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a freakish mix of different pieces all stacked together haphazardly.

Like the Borg.

"Incoming transmission," Uhura said.

"Onscreen," Kirk answered.

The screen shifted and a familiar face was staring back at them. The screen was tinted a sickly green, but it was still him.

Spock.

"I am Parleus of Borg. Your resistance is futile, Captain Kirk. Your continued attempts at undermining us is illogical and senseless. You will be assimilated, and if you resist, we will destroy you."

Kirk smiled again. "Same ol' speech, old friend. Nice to see you too."

* * *

Edited the first chapter to have Kirk with an eyepatch-why? Cause they're pirates now, that's why! :D

And if you notice, Marlena starts calling the Captain as 'Kirk' in her mind once she finds out the Enterprise has 'died', and the use of ranks disappear. He's still the Captain, but I just wanted to subconsciously drive home the fact that this isn't Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

Also the reasoning behind Borg-Spock's name is that he's this reality's version of Locutus-a spokesperson chosen by the Borg to make assimilation 'easier' for the species. They got the name Locutus from Latin's 'he who has spoken' (according to Memory-Alpha) so I picked Parleus as inspired from the French 'to speak/talk' as well.


	3. Is Futile

The eyes. The eyes were what always spooked him.

Besides the metal implants covering the left side of his face, the creature on screen looked like Spock, sounded like Spock, moved like Spock, but there was no mistaking those eyes. Empty. Spock's eyes, even as emotionless as he'd like to pretend he was, were never empty. They were reserved, guarded, and on certain occasions, maybe the barest hint of exasperation during an argument with McCoy, but never empty.

All it did was remind him of what he had to do to the creatures that called themselves the Borg.

His fists clenched unconsciously, and he reminded himself that he had to take a lesson from his old friend, and resist all urges to ram his ship headfirst into that space station.

"Approaching this sector is futile. You will be assimilated."

"You really never get tired of that, do you?" Kirk said with his most casual of grins. "I'm simply here to say hi. Do Borg…say hi? I mean, I'm sure you do, even if it's all up here…" he tapped his skull. "You guys get all friendly in there, don't you?"

"Why did you return here, Captain Kirk? Any attempt at attack will result in your immediate destruction. Surrender unconditionally and assimilation will commence."

Kirk took a glance around the bridge, almost lazily. Uhura stared straight ahead, not a hint of emotion on her face. Too many years separated her and the Vulcan who once held her heart. She'd already said goodbye to him. Everyone else was a mask of indifference—the anger had simply become a way of life. All except the Lieutenant…Moreau, a face he remembered from what seemed like a lifetime before, a pretty face now marred by the Borg. Her eyes were wide with shock. Fear, probably. The same story, different characters, over and over again. When would it all end?

Soon. It would end soon.

"I have a message for you, Spock," Kirk delighted in baiting the Borg. He took delight in little these days.

"The one named Spock is no longer in existence. I am Parleus of Borg. There will be no negotiation, only surrender."

"Think about it, Spock, why would I fly my completely outmatched ship right into the middle of a rather well-guarded outpost of yours? Doesn't make sense, does it?"

"Your course of action can only be constituted as unconditional surrender."

"Search the one named Spock's memories. In all the time that he's known me, have I ever surrendered? Do I even have the capability to?"

The slightest of twitches on the Borg's face.

"Your appearance here is illogical. Your course of action can only be constituted as mental degradation from biological illness or brain injury. If incurable, you will be unfit for assimilation and destroyed."

"Like I said, I'm only here to bring a message to you. Will you hear it?"

A long pause.

"We will comply. State your message. Then you will be assimilated. Attempts to resist will be—"

Kirk rubbed his forehead. "Gonna let me say my message or not?"

The Borg was quiet.

"Thank you." Kirk got up from his seat, and gave that haunted grin again. "We've got the Omega Molecule, and we're gonna use it. Kirk out."

If Spock, as a Borg, could ever have a look of horror, even if it was just the miniscule raising of an implant-encrusted eyebrow, he just did, right then.

"You cannot have—"

"Cut transmission," Kirk made a slashing motion over his throat, and the image of the Borg winked out. "Engage cloaking device. We're outta here."

"Engaging cloaking device…now," Sulu said with the slightest of smiles as what seemed like a hundred Borg ships, modified shuttlecrafts and alien crafts from a thousand worlds began emerging from the space station like a nest of disturbed insects.

"You were one of those kids who knocked down wasps nests for fun, weren't you?" McCoy's dry tone echoed behind Kirk. He didn't bother looking behind him.

"Maximum warp factor, Mr. Sulu, we don't want any _wasps _on our tail."

"Going to warp," Mr. Sulu punched it in.

Kirk held his breath ever-so-slightly as the stars stretched out and they made the jump. "Miss Moreau, anything following us?"

"Hmm? Oh!" she jumped and quickly buried her face in the console. "N-negative, Captain. We're in the clear."

"That's what I like to hear," Kirk got out of his seat, with an air of triumph.

"Just one question, Jim. The next time they see us, they can easily scan us for the presence of any Omega molecules. We don't have any. Care to explain your little gambit?" McCoy crossed his arms.

"Nope."

"Jim, come on—we're not going to be assimilated between now and then, you can tell us."

"You don't know that," he said, his good eye holding a sense of heavy loss. "I've made that mistake before. I'm not gonna make it again."

"Then can you at least tell us where we're going?"

"Uh…not really."

"So you're just heading out there."

"Pretty much."

McCoy gave Kirk a long-suffering look. Then he said in a low voice, "You know that I'll follow you to the heart of a black hole and back. But you've got people here that don't know you like the rest of us do. Considering that they don't really have a choice but to tag along with us, maybe you should, oh, I don't know, be a little accommodating?"

"What?"

He jerked a finger to Marlena, who was busy tapping the screen and muttering something angry to herself. It was not the fastest of computers.

"I trust you implicitly, Jim, but remember to earn _their _trust, too. I know deep down you think that if it all goes down, we're expendable for the cause. But what's the point of fighting for humanity if you've lost yours?" And with that, he left the bridge.

Kirk hadn't forgotten about her, he just didn't think an orientation was necessary. His plan was right on schedule and he didn't think it necessary to go around explaining things to people who would probably wind up assimilated in two seconds if fighting got hairy. Bones was right, of course. What was the point of fighting if he was going to view people like…like…drones?

He shuddered, and quickly went over to Marlena's station.

"Miss Moreau, if you're not too busy, I'd like to take a walk and talk about some things."

She looked up, startled. "Now?"

"If you can spare it," he gave a wry twist of his mouth.

She quickly got up from her chair. "Of course. Is there something wrong?"

"No, I'd just like to give you a tour of the ship. Welcome aboard, you know."

***

It was actually pleasant, walking through the crummy interior, dodging hanging panels and broken lights. The Kirk wasn't all that bad company, and he seemed to be trying extra hard to answer her questions in a kind manner, but it came out as stilted and awkward.

"So we have a limited amount of food items available in our replicator and fresh food stores, but we have coffee. Hopefully that will be sufficient for you."

Marlena laughed, and Kirk blinked.

"Sorry," she said, turning a bit red. "You just sound so…different than you used to."

"I know. I can do a pretty mean Spock impersonation these days," he said, with the slightest of smiles.

"It's more sad than funny," she said, not sure where she was getting this bravery from, but he was easy to talk to. Then she spoke in the softest of tones. "Why did this have to happen to us?"

"Ours is not to question why," he said after a long pause. "Though one wonders what might have been instead…"

"You'd be Captain in Starfleet, and I'd be a Lieutenant in Starfleet, and we wouldn't be in a cold, rickety Bird of Prey with only coffee as the only thing to look forward to in an afternoon snack."

This time, he actually gave a real smile. "Indeed."

Gathering up all her gumption, she cut in front of him as they walked. "What is our mission, Captain? What exactly are you setting out to accomplish?"

"If I tell you, you might wish to leave this ship."

"Something tells me I don't have a choice."

He sighed, and stopped walking. "There are very little of us left—of anyone left. The Borg have started taking the colonies, the free stations—before they used to leave us alone, if you weren't a threat they never bothered. The only people that are left are leaving for greener pastures. I'm staying. You figure out the rest."

"You're staying…to destroy the Borg."

He nodded.

"But…that really is futile. There's no way you can beat the Borg, not all by yourself. Not even all of the Federation could beat them!"

He raised an eyebrow. "Nope."

"Then what are you planning to do?"

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "If you want to leave, I can drop you off at the nearest colony and you can catch a transport with anyone there. They'll take you in, no questions asked."

"You're not planning to come back from this, are you?"

"Oh, that's really putting too much faith in the Borg now. I've managed to get by for ten years. Surely I have a bit more left in me?"

"But being a thorn in their side, I mean…that's it? Picking at them? Destroying them is impossible, so you'd rather spend your life being a _fly _on the back of a horse?" She was incredulous.

His good eye turned the coldest she'd ever seen him.

"It's all I have left. It's all the rest of us have left."

"But that's not a life!"

"My life was already taken from me!" he snapped, his face turning red.

She stood back, but somehow, she managed to smile.

"So. You can feel _something._"

Kirk frowned, and shook his head. "You do what I did for ten years, and you see how you handle things."

"You try doing what _I did_ for ten years!" she snapped back, and stalked off. She had no idea where she was going, but she didn't care. She _did _want off this ship with a death-wish, she wanted back in Starfleet, she wanted her old uniform, she wanted her rank-

A hand grabbed her arm. It was Kirk.

"I'm sorry. Marlena."

She frowned, and wrenched her arm free.

"I haven't been completely honest with you," he said, his voice turning…real. "What do you remember of those…ten years?"

She shook her head. "Not…not much. Why?"

"We…" his voice cracked. "I'm so sorry, Marlena. There was a Vulcan, on one of the colonies we stopped at. You were…you were lost, so lost to the collective, there was nothing of you left…we had the Vulcan…she was skilled in this…with a combination of Dr. McCoy's help, they…took away your memories of that time, so that you—the real you, would come back properly."

The shock of the realization hit her, physically, and she staggered back. "My…memories? You stole my memories—"

He grabbed her shoulders. "You were a drone for so long, your personality had degraded—"

"You stole my _memories_!?" she pushed him back, tears forming in her eyes. She shook her head, then ran down the hallway.

"To help you!" he yelled, and began to run after her. Someone grabbed Kirk's arm and he whirled around. It was McCoy. He shook his head.

"Too soon."

"But what about-"

He shook his head soon. "Tell her later."


End file.
